Wild Card Bets for Every 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend Event and Award
The 2025 edition of NBA All-Star Weekend kicks off on Friday, Feb. 14 at the Chase Center in San Francisco. If you need to take a breath after a hectic trade deadline, do it now; the NBA is unrelenting.
In addition to the standard fare—the Castrol Rising Stars, Kia Skills Challenge, Starry 3-Point Contest and AT&T Slam Dunk—the league is testing out a new format for the All-Star Game. Instead of the standard East vs. West setup, we'll see a three-game slate involving four teams.
You've only a couple of days to prep your picks. So let's forget the favorites and make things interesting by offering up the best long-shot bets for all the events of a loaded All-Star slate.
Castrol Rising Stars MVP: Ausar Thompson
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Amen Thompson is in the midst of a second-season breakout with the Houston Rockets, which makes him too obvious to count as a wild-card pick.
His twin brother, Ausar Thompson, is an ideal choice.
One of only a half-dozen players to average at least 1.9 steals and 1.2 blocks per 36 minutes over the last two years (minimum 50 games played), Thompson is a chaotic force who'll thrive in the sped-up, unstructured environment of the Rising Stars game. His athleticism and motor should produce loads of highlights, making playing time the only real hindrance to MVP-caliber numbers and memorable moments.
Thompson will share the floor with his brother, Bilal Coulibaly and Scoot Henderson on Team Mitch Richmond, three on-ball threats who profile as safer MVP picks. But if the Detroit Pistons wing takes matters into his own hands by racking up steals, running the floor and dominating in transition, he'll have a great shot at standing out.
Kia Skills Challenge: Team Rooks
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It'll be an uphill battle for Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr, a pair of rookies looking to upset a stacked field led by hometown favorites Draymond Green and Moses Moody, not to mention the star-powered duo of Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell from the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But who has more to prove than the top two picks from the widely panned 2024 draft class?
Risacher and Sarr may not have come off the board as early in other years, but they're both notable for their multi-skilled profiles and tantalizing mix of size and skill. Sarr, in particular, has the ability to grab and go at a pace most players with his 7-foot frame can't. That'll be helpful in a contest that prizes speed.
Shooting will be a challenge, and it's not hard to imagine Sarr and Risacher (30.7 percent and 31.1 percent from deep, respectively) getting stuck for an uncomfortable length of time as they try to get a jumper to fall. But we're banking on youthful exuberance and the drive to validate their class as motivators.
Starry 3-Point Contest: Darius Garland
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You can't pick two-time winner and betting favorite Damian Lillard.
Buddy Hield is too obvious given his familiarity with the Chase Center rims and a playing style that treats most games as if they're three-point shooting contests.
Tyler Herro is an intriguing pick, considering the strides he's made this season are directly related to swapping out two-point jumpers for the three-point variety.
But we're going deeper down the list and selecting ascendant Cavs All-Star Darius Garland. He's hitting 43.0 percent of his extra-deep threes this season (defined as 25-29 feet), the best of anyone in the contest. That tells you he's got the legs to endure 30 standstill triples in quick succession. Fatigue is always a factor in these contests, and Garland has the strong base and set-shot style to hold up for multiple rounds.
There's real value here, as the Cavs guard has the fifth-longest odds in the eight-man field. Plus, Garland gave us some recent evidence that he's not afraid to let it fly from deep in pressurized moments.
AT&T Slam Dunk: Stephon Castle
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Mac McClung is gunning for the first ever back-to-back-to-back Slam Dunk titles, and he's the deserving favorite in a field that also features rookies Stephon Castle and Matas Buzelis along with second-year Milwaukee Bucks wing Andre Jackson Jr.
Buzelis' highlight reel is impressive, and he's only added to it with increasing frequency as he's earned more playing time with the Chicago Bulls. He's a tempting choice, but dunk contests don't tend to favor taller competitors. His 6'10" height is too big of a hindrance to justify even a wild-card pick. Meanwhile, Jackson, a tip-dunk maestro, doesn't seem likely to have a deep enough bag of self-created jams.
That leaves Castle, who has a lot more going for him than his odds suggest.
A two-foot jumper who dunks the ball with what feels like legitimate anger, he'll appeal to judge Jason Richardson, a two-time winner with a similar profile. Another judge, Baron Davis, will appreciate Castle's penchant for attacking big men in the air, something he memorably did back in the days of standard definition.
Castle has the right combo of size, athletic ferocity and style to upset McClung.
All-Star MVP: Kevin Durant
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Just imagine the narrative perfection of Kevin Durant, fresh off a trade deadline that saw him say "thanks, but no thanks" to a reunion with the Golden State Warriors, lighting up the scoreboard in front of the Chase Center fans.
At what point in the proceedings would the boos turn to cheers?
The natural hindrances to KD walking away with his third All-Star Game MVP (2012, 2019) are plentiful. He's in his age-36 season, for starters, and is probably more likely to take it easy in short stints than red-line in search of All-Star glory. Plus, if any aging star is going to make a run at an award, it'll be betting favorite and hometown superhero Stephen Curry.
Still, Durant is far enough down the list of likeliest winners to warrant a pick here. He's certainly no stranger to clapping back, and any hostility from Warriors fans could fuel him. That's to say nothing of wanting to show his current team, the Phoenix Suns, how wrong they were for putting him on the trade block without telling him.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
